Shopping malls, department stores, airport duty free shops, tourist attractions, etc., may attract hundreds or even thousands of visitors and/or patrons each day. Demographic information regarding such visitors would be valuable for marketing purposes; and statistical information regarding changes in the average number of visitors per day, the average number of visitors by days of the week, seasonal traffic, holiday traffic, etc., may be helpful in improving facility operations and/or resource allotment. Since the use of the customer analysis information leads to increase of sales or reduction of costs, demands for detecting and counting visitors at a specific place have recently increased.
There are many ways to detect or count such visitors or patrons, e.g., using an infrared light sensor or a video camera. Infrared light sensors disposed on opposite sides of an entry way may be utilized to detect the entry and exit of individuals. However, those sensors are unreliable for counting visitors or patrons when multiple individuals pass by the infrared light sensors simultaneously or if one or both of the sensors is blocked by an object. Further, infrared sensors are unable to acquire customer demographic information and analyze the same.
Video cameras may also be deployed to detect and count visitors and/or patrons to an establishment. Corresponding facial recognition capabilities may be utilized to capture some demographic information of such visitors and/or patrons, particularly gender, but there are limitations to the reliability of video cameras especially when the visitors and/or patrons appear simultaneously in large numbers.